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By Adriana Ermter

By Rachel Sanders

Amanda and David Clegg only realized how desperately they wanted a child when they discovered they might not be able to have one.

Like many women of her generation, Amanda postponed thinking about having kids until she was in her mid-30s, wanting to finish school, establish a career and buy a home before starting a family.

by Leslie Grant Timmins

If you're a Hot Flush Queen like me, stress reduction and bio-identical hormone therapy may bring relief from menopausal symptoms, as I reported in the September issue of alive.

Many parents swear by acupuncture for increased fertility

Fertility | More and more couples are trying this ancient practice to help them get pregnant.

It's been use in china for over 2,000 years by acupuncture to help infertility is a new concept in North America.
Dr. Lorne Brown is a doctor of Chinese medicine specializing in fertility. This former Fredericton resident is now living in Vancouver.

Dean and Aeri, a Vancouver couple in their mid-30s, tried to conceive naturally for two years. After getting medical check-ups and being told they had only a two to five percent chance on their own, they opted for a mainstream medical approach for revving up fertility. Basically, it would entail injecting Dean’s sperm into one of Aeri’s eggs.

Today, one in six couples can't conceive. In vitro is expensive and doesn't always work. So some are turing to traditional Chinese treatments such as acupuncture. And as Leslie Grant Timmins reports, finding themselves on fertile ground.

Our GP couldn't tell us why we weren't getting pregnant." says Shannon Kush, a 31 year old student of sign language and deaf studies in Vancouver.

Lorne Brown’s Acubalance Wellness Centre is unique in Canada.

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Published June 18, 2004

If you think parenting is tough, consider that one in six couples can't even get there. But there's a new baby boom underway and with it, fertility clinics are beginning to breed across the province. And though the prices aren't cheap, the procedures aren't easy and the odds aren't great, the business of babies has never looked better.

The price of Life

For couples having trouble conceiving, infertility treatments get a boost from acupuncture and other Chinese medicine techniques.

Suzanne Reichenbach
with baby Zander

After
two years of desperately trying to have a baby, Suzanne Reichenbach was
told she would never produce enough eggs to conceive. At age 34, her
hormone levels were virtually premenopausal.

Like millions of other modern women who have pushed back
motherhood into their mid-30s and beyond, Reichenbach jumped at costly
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatments, the so-called petri-dish
solution. But with too few follicles - the clusters of ovarian cells
that house a woman's eggs - science was stumped and Reichenbach was
frustrated.

Desperate, the would-be mom told her doctor at Genesis
Fertility Centre, a Vancouver reproductive clinic, that she would be
temporarily leaving their care to take one last stab at pregancy . . .
through the 8,000-year-old art of acupuncture. It didn't matter that
her physician had little hope in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).